Adam Lambert Bringing Queen Music Back to ‘American Idol’

It's been 10 years since the singer enjoyed a life-changing experience as a contestant on the TV talent show’s eighth season. Having auditioned by singing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” his finale performance featured Brian May and Roger Taylor, who went on to work with him as Queen + Adam Lambert. Their latest U.S. tour takes place in the fall.

American Idol producers confirmed that Lambert – who’s returned on several occasions in the past – would appear during a two-hour show on April 28, mentoring contestants as they each go through the process of choosing, learning and performing a Queen song. He’ll later appear on the season finale, airing on May 19.

In 2017 May recalled how he’d been alerted by friends and colleagues when Lambert’s audition performance of “We Will Rock You” appeared on YouTube. “[I]t was evident that he was something completely out of the ordinary,” he wrote in 2017 book Queen in 3-D. As a result, he and Taylor agreed to appear on the season finale. “[I]t was really blindingly obvious that there was a chemistry already between us and Adam,” he said. “It just happened completely naturally and made us all smile. The public reaction was massive, and so I think from that moment the idea of us working with Adam was seeded in our brains.”